“Valerie, I asked for those files on the Nexo product line ten minutes ago; where are they?” I hold the intercom button on my phone on my desk for my secretary. My tone harsh and snappy. Irritated that even after five years as my assistant, she doesn’t understand how much her slowness annoys me. She’s efficient in so many ways, but she is aggravatingly snail-like when it comes to moving with speed. Maybe it’s time I switch her out for another because I have no patience the older I get, and my last was fired for a similar reason.
“I’m sorry, Vice president Park, I’m right on it.” The waver in her voice calms my inner anger, knowing that she is easily intimidated by me, and I exhale heavily and slump back in my seat. Spinning around to view the city skyline from up here and facing another grey and wet day, covering most of the buildings in smog. My mood is so so, like any day of my existence these past years, and I stare blankly into the nothingness, feeling like it could be a reflection or a self-portrait if I were a painter. If I had to assign an image to my inner voice, it would look a lot like this city on a miserable day in August.
“Valerie, Is my husband back in the office yet?” I add in afterthought, leaning sideways to reach it this time, after catching sight of the funding approval report for one of his investments laid on top of the pile I have yet to get to. He’s been waiting for the accounting department to finish with it and go through me for approval, and I know he’ll want it pronto.
“Yes, ma’am. He walked by a few minutes ago.”
I tap my finger on the file and contemplate taking it to him, knowing he needs it but not relishing a cold start to my day. We work together and see each other daily because we can’t avoid it, but he’s long been a distant presence to me, and I don’t relish forcing conversation today. I’m not in the mood for walking on eggshells and being made to feel worthless by his complete lack of interest in me, yet something deep inside of me wants to break the ice and see him. I know I shouldn’t, it’s pointless, but my soul is crying out for him. It’s this stupid cycle, knowing it will only disappoint me, but I yearn for him.
Who knew that marrying him would only give me seven short months of possibility for happiness and then die a death as quickly as it began? Fate really hated my guts when she delivered me into this body and made me Sohla Kim.
I gaze at it blankly, all thoughts falling out of my head, and I know I’m only like this today because of the date, and I’m apprehensive because I’m more sensitive than usual. If it weren’t for it being today, I would make my assistant take it to him and avoid him at all costs.
I push down the hesitation and stand up, taking it with me and heading out to see him. Swallowing down pointless emotions that I don’t need and pushing thoughts aside that only serve to hurt me. It’s not who I am or how mother raised me this past decade. She taught me well in this cutthroat society in which we exist. As women, we need to be stronger, fiercer, and colder than any man to succeed in the corporate world. I’m stronger and won’t show weakness even when broken inside.
She helped me focus all my pain of my losses on work and being perfect. Polished and molded me into something most women envy, and I became a walking and breathing female version of Mr. Park before he passed away five years ago. He lived for work, status, and respect, and I became the same. My only goal is to take his place and help my husband push OLO into world domination.
Jyeon’s project is a significant investment with billions of dollars of our money on the line, nothing matters more than that today, and that’s all I should think about. Not even this death anniversary that I know he won’t want to remember or care about anyway. In fact, three years ago, he made it blatantly clear that he never wanted me to mention it again in his presence or that he would divorce me on the spot. Looking back, divorce would probably have been easier to accept than how we live now. Then again, we didn’t marry for love; we married for this and everything we have, so why would we divorce over something so trivial? OLO is more significant than us and our problems.
I strut out and confidently walk across the main foyer between our penthouse offices, looking unphased even if I feel fragile. Passing Yoonha’s on the way and noting he’s still out and doing Director-related tasks. My feet are killing me in my new heels, and I catch Yoonha’s secretary admiring me from her desk and checking out my new cream Louis Vuitton dress and jacket that look killer on my slim body.
The only things that give me joy are finding nice clothes that catch people’s eye and achieving great things in this empire that no other woman in my field has accomplished. It’s all I live for, seeing as everything else carries only emptiness and hurt.
“Vice president Park, I’ll announce you.” Jyeon’s small blonde secretary is flustered at the sight of me. Another female employee who cowers at my feet and jumps up to bow, and then quickly presses the intercom. I ignore her and swan past without a word. Walking without stopping, because I know I’ll lose my courage otherwise, and push into his office's wide double wooden doors. He has the biggest, being the president of OLO, and his spectacular view comes at you from two entire walls of glass.
Jyeon is sat at his desk, head tilted forward, immersed in reading something on his laptop, and doesn’t flinch or bat an eye at my strolling in without announcement. I know he senses me, heard me walk in, and can probably smell my perfume that he told me he hates with a passion. To quote, ‘the smell makes me sick to my stomach.’ It’s why I still wear it, even if the smell sometimes makes me nauseous from the memories it conjures up. He was the one who bought it for me as newlyweds when we thought we might manage to make this work. This is just how I’ve come to survive in this shitty existence. Hurting him for hurting me…. it’s immature, but at least it’s the only way I can grab his attention from time to time.
I tense at seeing him like I always do because even after all this time, I’ve never been able to entirely oust him from my heart, even if there’s no love between us. My stomach tightens, and those irritating butterflies rise and flutter around until I push them down with a heavy inhale. Steeling myself to regain immunity and hating that my stupid, naïve heart can never remove the Jyeon of long ago from my head. Even though we have both changed beyond recognition in ten years, our story is a rollercoaster and long, and somehow all stops always end up at Hatesville, no matter how much we try to pull it back.
He looks good in a white shirt, navy tie, and no suit jacket. His black hair has been styled off his forehead to bring out his best features. His straight black brows frame the darkest brown, gorgeous eyes, and that faultless jawline enhances everything, even his full lips and how he chews his lower one when he concentrates. Jyeon was always blessed with how he looked, and it only causes me more pain when I stare at him, seeing the boy I used to adore. He hasn’t been that boy for a long time - only in my memories, only by name.
“What is it?” He asks without looking up, fingers on his keyboard paused, and making zero effort to make eye contact with me. The instant aura of closed off and aloof that he always serves me, and his tone is flat. I ignore it, walk forward, and dump the file on his desk with little grace, folding my arms over my chest with nonchalance to show him I don’t care. Always on guard, never hinting at weak.
“Your proposal results. It’s plausible if you can get the board to agree. It looks like a solid investment, and I have no reason not to back it. I agree; we should go for it.” I wait for him to lift it and open it, and he takes his time. He glances at me for a few seconds as he scans my outfit, has no facial reaction, no acknowledgment if I look good or bad, and then goes back to the task. Lifting it and flipping through it while he speed reads it. Infuriatingly unreadable, as always.
“Hmmm.” He flips more pages, returns to the financial breakdown and risk report, and rereads it. I wait and watch, my insides churning because deep down, I know what today is, and it makes me want to ask him not to be like this for one day. It makes me want to break the mask of cold indifference I have worn for so many years and show him that girl he used to know and care for still exists inside the poster perfect Park daughter-in-law his mother polished for him. She sometimes wants to break free and curl up in his arms to cry it out like I did the day of my parent’s funeral. She still wants that boy who held her hand through those dark days and tried to be the comfort in her life. My fingers twitch with the effort of holding it in, and I tap my foot to keep it under wraps.
“I thought we could have dinner together tonight with the family.” I drop it casually, surprising myself because it comes from nowhere and I hadn’t planned it, and catch him stiffening even while sitting reading. A pause, a furrow so subtle on his brow, but I can’t miss it.
“Not today. I have plans.” It’s a curt and cold response, and despite not shedding a single tear since the day my parents died, I feel one rise up and clog in my throat like a sharp boulder that threatens to choke me. I know he avoids today, and maybe it still hurts him after four years, but I can never tell if it’s grief or hatred. He still blames me for it, and I know it’s where any possibility of us was destroyed. Just another notch cut out of my heart, along with the dozens of other times when life blew us apart so cruelly.
“Right. I guess I’ll eat with them. I’ll have the housekeeper keep yours warm.”
“Don’t. I’m staying out overnight. I won’t be back.” Again, another quick, cold reply to cut me off and clarify that today of all days, is not one he will ever spend with me. It won’t ever be in my presence, whether it makes him sad or mad.
My face aches with the effort of staying composed, and I force a slight smile that I know won’t reach my hazel eyes, flicking my long brown hair off my shoulder with sass, and I can’t help myself wounding him the way he’s hurting me.
“I guess you won’t come to the cemetery with me then. To leave flowers on her grave?” The oozing disdain is undeniable, and I hate myself for doing this, but he doesn’t understand what goes on inside me. How I feel, how much it still hurts even if it was my fault. That I’m screaming inside while the outer shell is a blank and emotional heartless bitch who lives only to make money. That I was pushed and molded and coerced and left Sohla Kim, the girl far behind, so long ago, to be able to take a step day after day to continue living. The same way he did when his father passed away after abusing alcohol and destroying his marriage for years after losing my father.
“Do you have a right?” He stays with his eyes on the report, his chest a little more noticeably heaving with his breaths but nothing else shows. A cutting question slipping out of that immaculate icy exterior.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I spit venomously, my tone instantly hostile, triggered by his words and stung by his ability to cut me down with so few of them. All these years, it’s always been his biggest weapon against me. Because I loved him even when I didn’t know it, and I think deep down, I love him still. I just don’t want to.
“I don’t want to do this today. Don’t make me the bad guy again. Go….do whatever you’re doing. Take the day off, take flowers, whatever. Just leave me out of it. I’m not interested.” He closes the file with an exaggerated sigh, remaining composed, and flips it to one side, pushing his chair back and getting up. He shrugs his jacket from the chair behind him and makes it clear he intends to walk out to avoid this conflict. This is what he does. When I rise to any fight or attempt to bring up everything that’s happened over the years, Jyeon leaves, and I hate it so much that I feel like I could spit teeth. My anger rises inside like molten lava, and it takes everything for me not to flip out and break loose.
“She was your daughter too….. don’t you think it hurts her that you never go there?” It’s out before I can stop myself. Years of this bubbling inside me, and his mid-walk pause and instant tense posture give me an inkling of satisfaction. A flicker of emotion from him is so rare that I cling to this, even if it’s an unhealthy way of getting it from him. I know this is toxic, and we’re dysfunctional. I just can’t stop it.
“Why are you like this?” He turns his head and glares at me over his shoulder. His eyes are dark with anger and more profound emotion that might be sadness, but I can’t back down. I never can. That’s been my problem for a long time. We push, pull, and are always at cold war, even when the surface is calm and things seem pleasant.
“Because you act like she never existed. Because you’re like this.” My voice trembles and my throat aches, but it sounds like venom rather than genuine pain. Me accusing again, and Jyeon hears only my shirking blame on him for everything. All he ever sees from me are daggers and bullets, and he doesn’t think beyond that.
“Me? Are you really…….? Jesus Christ, Sohla. You’re really something; you know that” He breathily laughs in disbelief, shaking his head, and turns to me fully. His face hints at the internal rage, but he would never lose his cool completely. It’s not how he was raised. He’s the outstanding and impeccable head of the Park family. Master President of OLO and a respected mature, calm businessman who shoulders everything for his entire family without complaint. His mask is as fake and full of shit as mine. We’re products of bad parenting with non-existent coping mechanisms.
“You’re the reason she’s dead. Don’t come at me with this bullshit. I’m not the one who went back to work before we even laid her in the ground, Sohla. I’m not the one who never shed a tear or seemed to care about her and got rid of every speck of her existence before her name was on a headstone. You’re cold and dead inside, and you took the one thing from me that might have made us….” He points at me, then himself in a flicking gesture, “… worth something. You have no right to come in here and throw bullshit at me about how I am and how I never go to her grave. You don’t know anything about how I live.” He doesn’t wait for me and storms off in haste without looking back, and I know he won’t come back to the office today, slamming the door in his wake. Not now.
I stare blankly after him and yet don’t react. I don’t follow either, but instead, I lean over and adjust the files he left strewn on his desk and straighten his pen before brushing down my dress and fixing my appearance to return to my office. Ingrained in me that impressions are worth more than emotions.
I should never have come in here and started this because everything he said is accurate, and I know it, and I despise myself, but I can’t help it. We were ill-fated from the start, he and I. Pushed together by force, any genuine affections were always trampled to death by one thing or another over the years. Death came at us from all angles.
Mother broke down and became a mere shadow of herself while trying to raise me to an impossible standard that I could never reach, and she’s somehow etched her broken soul into mine. Her husband's death shattered and splintered us all as much as my own parent’s death did.
Yoonha was introverted and couldn’t help hold up the crumbling walls around us to help his brother. Becoming more emotional and withdrawn and clinging to me, so Jyeon did it alone. Jyeon had to become the one to shoulder all things. Silently, without complaint. He lost his entire childhood and had to take a position before adulthood that would make most men crumble.
I was on my own path of self-destruction and so immersed in appearing to be the worthy Park daughter to take my father's place that I stopped being a human. I stopped having feelings. I couldn’t show my wounds or weaknesses while being a girl if I wanted to succeed in this business. It’s a man’s world, and you have to become like them if you're going to survive. It was easier to pull on a persona and leave everything I couldn’t face somewhere else.
Our baby, she wasn’t planned. She was a miracle that I never acknowledged because she didn’t fit my goals and timeline. We had only been married a few months when I found out and still trying to find our feet as a couple, battling the resentment he felt for being pushed this way. I never appreciated what she was or why she was sent to me, and I ignored my body and my health despite everything Jyeon begged of me. His father had recently passed, and we were all dealing in our way with our issues and not ready for more fallout. She was supposed to be our healing miracle.
I worked, pushed myself, and disregarded everything they said a pregnant woman should do because I was carrying so much inside of me that I couldn’t put down. Jyeon and I fought relentlessly over how I was being, trying to get me to step down until she was born, and yet OLO mattered to me more. His sanity and need to mourn mattered to me more. Our initial happy first months of growing closer came ripping down around my ears so fast because of my choices.
My father’s legacy. My image, position, and ambition were the driving forces that covered the emptiness inside me and enabled me to live without them. I was raised to be the ultimate Park daughter. Queen of the helm. There to make mother proud of my accomplishments. My entire identity was molded into this unfailing powerhouse daughter-in-law who could handle everything without tears or breaking down, so I couldn’t relinquish it and disappoint her. So many eyes were on me to be my father’s successor in investments, and I couldn’t let him down. I was the last Kim from my bloodline.
I came to my senses too late. I took an overnight flight when I had signs of bleeding, had warnings to slow down, attended a three-day conference in Germany, and delivered our premature baby in a bar bathroom after taking clients out to wine and dine. She didn’t live a week, and not once could I show myself to her or take responsibility for what I’d done. My guilt and heartbreak destroyed me, but no one saw it because my face was a blank and dry picture, and Jyeon lost what little affection he ever held for me—disgusted by my indifference to what he felt was the most painful tragedy of our lives.
I swallowed it down with every other loss and pain and moved on with my life at a fast pace so I could forget. I wanted to forget her so I could pretend it had never happened.
“Vice president Park, do you need anything?” Jyeon’s secretary interrupts my empty gazing into space as my thoughts run wild, and I blink at her in irritation. Coming back to earth and my surroundings with a bump. I shake myself mentally and return to my original façade.
“No. It’s fine; I’m leaving.” I smile insincerely and stroll past her as though all is right in my world. I am playing the part.
Jyeon and I are always very careful about who sees us in our fake marriage, so we show the world how happy we are. We act so well when the occasion calls for us to appear together in public that I think it’s fooled my heart all these years that I love him.
“Have a good day, Vice President.” The young girl opens the door to let me out and quickly moves so I can leave without throwing her a glance.
I pull out my cell phone and immerse my focus there, checking my schedule for the day, knowing I didn’t leave any space to allow myself to go to her grave even though I said I would. I never intended to. I can’t put myself through that. As for dinner tonight with mother and Yoonha, that’s a given most nights of the week, not that Jyeon would know, as he rarely regularly comes home before eleven pm.